In the penultimate pool game of the women’s side of the tournament, South Africa took on a Welsh side looking for their first points of the tournament.

Wales started the first half on the front foot creating some chances in the opening few minutes, but South Africa opened the scoring through Shelley Russell who capitalised on a South Africa break. South Africa then doubled their lead within six minutes through Celia Evans from a penalty corner breakdown. Despite several more chances it took just over ten minutes for South Africa to score again, this time through Jade Mayne from a set play. The southern hemisphere side were on the front foot, attacking at every opportunity and testing the Welsh defence frequently. In the 26th minute Illse Davids slotted another strike into the Welsh net to take her side in with four goal advantage at the break.

In the second half, South Africa showed no signs of slowing down, scoring from their first penalty corner of the half through Tarryn Bright and just four minutes later Kathleen Taylor made it 6-0. Despite the scoreline, Wales continued to hunt for their first goal of the tournament and their persistence paid off in the 45th minute when Emma Batten deflected the ball into the goal from a deserved penalty corner. Wales created more chances, but after some great penalty corner defending were unable to clear and South Africa made it 7-1 through Dirkie Chamberlain. Tarryn Bright then got her second goal of the game to make it 8-1 after some great attacking pressure from South Africa. Goalkeeper Ella Jackson made her first appearance for Wales in the last five minutes of the game, but had little to do as Wales made it 8-2 through Eloise Laity from the last penalty corner of the game.

Dirkie Chamberlain said of the South Africa performance: "We're happy with the win, we said before the game that we wanted to score lots of goals and we worked hard to do that. Tomorrow's final is definitely a big game for us and the it's where we wanted to be - I think there are things we can take out of today's performance and look to improve, hopefully we can do that and have a strong performance in the final."